“And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.”
The FaithLife Study Bible interprets this the mark a true prophet, God did not allow any of his prophecies to go unfulfilled.
It’s a beautiful image. Everything he said was heard, was to a purpose. God ensured that he never wasted his breath.
Samuel is another child of a barren woman. Another momentous figure in the history of Israel, in the slow march toward Christ. Isaac and Jacob are both miraculous births. Joseph, the savor of his family and the source of the wealth and expansion. (Moses wasn’t a miraculous birth to a barren woman, but his survival was pretty miraculous…) Now Samuel at the beginning of the ‘unified’ kingdom.
Like Samson, he was a Nazarite from birth. Unlike Samson, who was brash, prideful, the antithesis to Christ, Samuel is a faithful servant.
Do you ever wonder if the chaotic anarchy of the preceding period would have been mitigated by a more invested High Priest? One who, I don’t know, cared that his sons were so corrupt? I mean, if he’d cared a little bit more all along, would his sons have turned out so horribly? I feel like… I feel like his parenting was as lacking as his leadership, I guess, and I wonder how much that lack of leadership and resulting corruption that flourished under his tolerance contributed to the tribes going their own ways.
Regardless, it was into that anarchy that Samuel was born and listened when God spoke. I don’t think there’s a single prophet I envy, a single one I’d like to be. They all seem to have pretty challenging obligations, have to give powerful people unsavory messages. But God stands for those who serve him; he empowers those he calls.
Samuel listened as spoke as he was told, and God empowered those words. The Lord was with him, because he was with the Lord.